Hello everyone again, some news has come out that Montgomery County has issued a Stay in Place order.  As of now, we are still going to be open for play but everyone should practice the social distancing.  However, there will be a curfew in place until 6am for non essential businesses.  This will effect our starting crew time which is normally at 6am.  We will begin rolling into the shop around 630am and start our normal morning maintenance.  You will most likely catch us earlier than normal.  This isn't because we can't roll out of bed and get to work, it is simply due to this curfew.  We will do our best to keep greens mowed, cups cut ahead of play but going forward we will have to spot rake bunkers.  This means, we will be only raking the footprints out, not the whole bunker daily.  We will pick a couple of days a week to fully rake the bunkers but again, you will probably catch us.  Another thing I would like to point out, as I was just overheard a conversation about services not being made available even though you are paying dues is, we did not pull the water coolers, bunker rakes or changed the cups upside down because we eliminated the staff to perform these duties, we have done it for your protection as well as mine and my staff and their families.  We have been ordered to remove all things that have point of contact by more than one person.  For this and my department this means we will not be putting the water coolers back out, or the rakes back out until this order has been lifted.  This isn't meant to be a lessening of the services that you pay for, it is simply out of precautionary measures to help ensure your safety, your families safety, as well as all employees and their families.  Please don't think of this as me or my staff being lazy and taking things away from you, it is simply doing our part to be safe during this pandemic.   If you have any questions or concerns regarding this email, never hesitate to email me at dlatham@bentwaterclub.com

Regards,

Donny Latham

Hello everyone again.  I know, I have been quiet.  Some things to talk about are certainly not a short supply now.  As we all make our way through this COVID19 pandemic, some obvious changes have been made from a GCM perspective.  All bunker rakes have been removed.  They are not closed, just eliminating the point of contact.  They may actually play as hazards as they were intended to be played but if you are out playing and find your ball in the bunkers, play away and use your foot to as best as possible smooth out the surface for those that may enter in the bunker after you have played your shot.  Cups have been turned upside down to eliminate the fishing out of the ball while touching the flagstick.  We are wiping down the flagsticks daily, but not constantly during the day.  Try and use your glove to retrieve your ball after you made that 10 footer for birdie and that skin.  Otherwise, I would suggest being pretty easy on the gimmies.  According to the USGA, your scores can still count during this time of altered cups.  Water coolers have been removed.  For obvious reasons as these could be a petri dish of germs.  As far as our operations, we are still open and operating as normal.  We are setting the courses up daily as well as mowing as much as we can. Last weeks 4.6" of rain has certainly put us behind on mowing fairways and rough.  I am sure we will get all courses mowed this week, fairways, tees, collars and approaches, but we will struggle to get all rough mowed this week.  Greens are starting to pick up pace.  We experienced a huge surge of growth a couple of weeks ago.  The growing weather finally hit and we were at winter mowing heights and had not sprayed our growth regulators.  Last Monday, we dropped the height of cut on greens and started our summer program of growth regulation.  We sprayed yesterday a fungicide to keep us clean as well as another round of growth regulation.  This will continue to increase our greens speeds.  During this time of uncertainty, things are changing seemingly every hour.  If anything changes with my staff sizes or budget or ability to set up the golf course daily, I will certainly let you know.  But, unless the state or county shuts us down, we will continue to operate.  I just ask you all do your part in eliminating points of contact and do your best social distancing.  That's a term I had never used but I had also never heard of a hanging chad before that election.  I will do my best to continue to update you all as we move forward past the pandemic as well as with anything that is coming up within the Agronomy Department.

Donny Latham

Happy New Year!  2020 will bring a more functional blog that I hope that anyone would post a question or comments.  Good or bad.  I would like to keep the membership informed and this is the best way that I can think of to stay in touch with as many of you as possible.  It was recently asked of me to talk about the bunker liners starting to show on Weiskopf bunkers. This is something that I will ask all of you to always let me know if you get into a bunker that had liner showing.  Starting Monday January 6th, The Miller will be the closed course on Mondays and Wednesday Weiskopf will be closed.  On these days, we will start to check sand level depths and add sand where we need.  We have not "lost" sand, it just gets redistributed under normal maintenance and play.  Take the chipping green bunker for example.  We always have to pull sand down off the face.  The bunker has plenty of sand, but with a lot of practice, the sand gets thrown up on the green or face of the bunker.  The bunkers should only have about 1-2" of sand.  But with as much practice that that bunker receives we are always needing to bring the sand down off the face and put back level on the floor.  Same goes for the courses.  This is something that will be a focus of ours starting next week.  As always, thank you for the emails and questions and keep them coming.

Regards,

Donny Latham

Hello everyone.  Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.  Nothing new to report, however, I did receive an email regarding the clearing we have been doing on Miller 14.  I and Scott Miller have always desired that area to be kept clean.  We try to shred this area as often as we can, lake level permitting, but with the lack of rain and the lake level being low, we have decided to clear this view all the way to the lake.  I know there are some that may not like this, however, I feel it gives this hole a very unique low lands look.  This area had become overgrown with trash trees and unwanted species of shrubs and underbrush.  This will be a look that we will continue to maintain until either the rains keep us from getting in there or the lake level rises again.  That's about all to report.  Hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year.

Regards,

Donny Latham

Hello everyone, It has been awhile.  I apologize for not posting over the past few months, but I am working on revamping this site to make it more open communication for you as members or interested readers as to what or why we are doing certain things.  Please in the meantime, if you ever have a question, request or a problem with your own turf please post a comment or email me with any questions.  If I do not have much to post that week, I can at least reply or answer some of the emails that I received in here as many of you may have the similar questions.  Again, I apologize for not posting, but as I said, I am going to be revamping this and making it more of an open dialogue.  Hope you are all out enjoying the great sunshine and golf courses.

Regards,

Donny Latham

Hello everyone, wanted to give a quick update on a few things that's been going on.

Grand Pines aerification was a success.  We pulled deep cores on the greens on Wednesday and then followed that back up with a smaller coring on the greens on Thursday/Friday.  Our holes are mostly filled with sand but will need to add a small amount of sand next Tuesday during our closed day.  The tees were all aerified and the new zoysia tees are now mown at .75" which is acceptable for playing from.  We will work to get these heavily topdressed in the coming week.  When we open you should expect the greens to be a bit bumpy, as with any aerification.  But they are healing nicely and I would suspect by mid June they will be back to rolling well.  We also pulled plugs on all fairways and collars and approaches.  These have been removed and cleaned up.  Also, we will be adding sod to #3 green as this weakened turf really suffered more during aerification. Our focus on the coming weeks will be to remove,trim, and cut out all native areas on holes 3,6,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,17 and 18.  This is a very time consuming process but feel our line of sights are being lost so we will tackle these areas one at a time. 

Miller.  It has been asked what happened to the large Post Oaks on 1 Miller.  I am not an arborist, but we have consulted with one and it is simply a root rot disease.  Post Oaks do not like to sit in very wet conditions.  The past winter and spring rains caused these Oaks to sit in an area that stayed wet.  We are looking at all other areas that contain Post Oaks and doing all we can to drain or dry up the soil.  Tuesday June 4th, we will remove the other two dead Oaks on 1 Miller and then work to reshape this whole area and prep it for sod.  I do not intend to replace these trees with more trees.  There is a vast quantity of trees in this area already and I think adding turf that will become part of the fairway will be a great look. 

Also, I have been asked what the black slime is on some of the Miller greens.  This is algae.  The greens weathered the winter well, but some areas stayed wet or damp throughout the winter and has caused our turf to thin.  We will start this week, removing this weak turf and sod and or plug these areas over the next two weeks.  Also, the Miller aerification is set up for June 24th and we will reopen on Tuesday July 2nd.

Weiskopf:

The bunker project is complete and they are looking very good.  It, in my opinion, was the best facelift of all three of the bunker projects.  We also have reshaped the drain areas on 9/10 and will continue to add more flag stone between these drain pipes.  I did not want to put rip rap in there as it's very much in play.  Also, the drains on 1 tee are working very well.  This area is no longer staying wet and we can actually mow and maintain these areas.  The Weiskopf greens have a few small thin areas and we will also plug/sod these all by June 14th.

Just wanted to bring everyone up to speed on what is going on this June.

Donny Latham

Happy May 2nd.  The Weiskopf bunkers are done and now just a matter of getting them raked and sand being compacted in on 13 and 15.  The rain today is certainly showing us that we still have some slow drains that we need to fix down the line from the bunkers but what a difference they make.  Already today, we were able to allow the LGA to play from the bunkers after the past two days of 3 plus inches of rain.  What a difference they are already making.  I am completely pleased with the new look. It seems to me that the Weiskopf golf course has received a much needed facelift.  I know there are some bunkers that were put into place that some may no agree with, but overall the new look is fantastic.  Next week, weather permitting, we will start to mow down some of the sod to fairway/approach height. Some holes to note that we will do this on is as follows.  #2, will have an approach back left where the old bunker was as well as #3,#5, #7, #9, #13, #17 and #18.  I look forward to sharing this vision with you next week. 

The miller is doing well, starting in the coming weeks, we will start to bull rock some very bad erosion scars in the pine straw beds.  I wanted to reshape these but with all the rain we have had and experience here, I think its best to let nature run through the course like it already does and as opposed to fighting it, we bull rock them so there is not more loss of soil and allow the water to vacate the properties around the course and get them to a drain. That will be a focus.  Also, there are some collars on Miller that just don't seem to ever be very good.  So, we are looking at replacing some of the Bermuda grass with zoysia in the heavily shaded holes.  These holes are 3, 5,7 and 13.  I think once these have grown in it will be a much better surface.

Grand Pines tees have been stripped, leveled and now waiting for rain to stop so that we can sod.  Same with Miller, the Bermuda grass requires a minimum of 8 hours of sunlight to grow to a high quality turf and many of these tees do not receive that.  So, we will be switching to Zeon Zoysia.  I know this will produce outstanding tee surfaces.  Enjoy the rain and look forward to seeing you all out on the golf courses.

Regards,

Donny Latham